Adam: LeBreton Flats should get an international design competition

The latest effort to develop LeBreton Flats is so very Ottawa. When it comes to doing something big, unique or special, our collective will and competence fail us.

You’d think that after the flop that was the first attempt in 2004 to develop the Flats, the National Capital Commission would have learned the right lessons and produced something breathtaking this time. But such is our limited imagination that the best the NCC could get out of a call for proposals are two similar plans for an NHL-style hockey arena.

“I asked them what we should do with this, and they said ‘Make it carte blanche, tabula rasa. Don’t prefigure it,'” National Capital Commission CEO Mark Kristmanson told the Citizen about a conversation he had with a number of so-called high-powered developers.

Now we know what happens when you give high-powered developers a blank canvas.

The plan the NCC now has to consider is flawed, perhaps fatally. But any hope it had of success may have been compromised by Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk’s vow that his team will never play in an arena owned by someone else.

Being the owner of the only NHL club in town, Melnyk’s move clearly undermines the feasibility of the rival bid by the DCDLS Group, tipping the scales heavily in favour of his team, Rendez Vous LeBreton.

While the details remain secret until Jan. 26, we know what’s important: a hockey arena will be the centrepiece of the two proposals. The harsh truth, however, is that if DCDLS somehow wins the competition, it would have the distinct pleasure of building a white elephant worth millions of dollars — an arena without a tenant.

Can the NCC realistically award the development contract to DCDLS without a team to play in its flagship arena? What would be the economic rationale for such a decision?

It is unclear why DCDLS proposed an arena, given public knowledge that the Senators were planning one. Clearly, DCDLS’s decision to make a hockey rink its anchor building, and Melnyk’s vow not to play in it, has left the NCC in an untenable situation.

Melnyk is well within his rights to refuse to play in someone else’s arena, and his development team could win by default.

But, would such a decision be fair or credible? And does the NCC really have any alternatives? This is reminiscent of what happened in 2004. Then, three groups were shortlisted but the team that scored the highest points in the competition and was expected to be awarded the contract, withdrew.

The second-in-line group got into a fight with the NCC and walked away, leaving the commission with no choice but to hand the development to the third-ranked group.

At the time, calls to scrap the competition and start again went unheeded. It was a different NCC, and it barreled ahead to save face. That’s how the city ended up with a banal condo development at LeBreton.

The circumstances are different, but the NCC may be faced with a similar dilemma again. And it can’t win either way.

The NCC can’t possibly award the contract to DCDLS given what Melnyk has said, but awarding the contract by default to Rendez Vous would be very controversial, even if one accepts the dubious proposition that a hockey arena is the appropriate use for this iconic riverside site.

What this looming debacle — as the one before it in 2004 — shows is that real estate developers cannot be relied on to undertake such a unique project. The time has come to open LeBreton Flats to an international design competition.

The new regime at the NCC was supposed to do better. It obviously hasn’t, and the board should have the courage to scrap the competition and start all over again.

The city has waited more than 10 years for the second phase development to begin, and it can wait another year or two for a proper competition.

If the NCC does not pull back, Mélanie Joly, the minster responsible, should crack the whip. We cannot afford to get LeBreton Flats development wrong again.

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